Golden day
What a great day! The “prime thought” for the day for me was “joyous,” and for Rick, it was “accommodation.” (I’ll elaborate on what “prime thoughts” are in a moment. First, the mundane details of our day!)
Rick took vacation this week and today was “adventure day.” I had never walked around Golden’s downtown area, so that’s where we headed early this afternoon. We went to Foss General Store, which is quite a phenomenon—it’s one of those “if they don’t have it, you don’t need it” kind of places. They had everything from convenience store items, to sofas made from actual front ends of old cars, costing thousands of dollars, and everything in between! After that, we went in search of lunch and ended up at the Bridgewater Grill at the Golden Hotel. Truthfully, we didn’t have high expectations, but figured they’d at least have a no-smoking section. Turned out to be fabulous! And very reasonably priced! We met the new owner of the hotel and she seemed quite passionate about making the hotel and restaurant top notch and genuinely thrilled at the positive feedback we gave her. We’ll definitely make a point of going back.
Then we decided to head for Indian Hills, which is the little foothills community where we had our wedding. We stopped at the community's only coffee shop, which had just changed hands, and sat in comfy chairs and got to know the new owners. (We were the only customers at the time.) Then we went and shopped for presents at Tesoros, a really cool store (just a stone's throw from the coffee shop) that we discovered last fall when were in Indian Hills touring the No-te-sah Pueblo that was for sale at the time. The store owners are very nice and I always feel good buying things there—so far, nothing major—just small but nice gifts. Wishing, however to change that by manifesting a large new home and decorating it with stuff from Tesoros! After we left the store, we headed for home, which is an easy 35-40 minute drive--but the trip from Indian Hills always seems shorter than that to me!
It wasn’t an action-packed day, but it was exactly what we needed. I get positively giddy when we head out on an adventure day! It’s just so lovely to be together, without the many day-to-day kinds of things that we tend to allow to come between us, and just have hanging out together as the goal for the day. Great for our relationship! I love it when we take day trips--to explore the mountains, or an unfamiliar neighborhood in Denver, or anywhere that’s just enough out of the day-to-day to feel special. Big adventures are great, too, of course, but the little ones that require little or no preparation, and don’t take days to recover from, are definitely favorites!
Now, “prime thoughts.” This idea was discovered by Rick, (whom I suspect will be weighing in on this topic!). Of course, as I found out when I was writing Recreating Eden, there really is nothing new under the sun. There seems to be a big repository of ideas that many people dip into at once and all think they've made a big discovery! Anyway, he decided that, everyday when he wakes up, he’s going to choose (or let choose him) a prime thought--a quality--that will be the overlighting factor of the day. His first day he chose “ease,” and found that everything truly went much more easily than usual all day. The next day, he chose something else, and discovered that the real prime thought needs always to be “ease” and every other one should be under the umbrella of “ease”! (Ease, if you recall, is a hallmark of Eden!) Anyway, when I remember to designate a prime thought for the day, it really works for me, too. Today, as I said, I chose “joyous” and that’s exactly what the day was!
As Julia points out, ideas that come to any of us are most often found, also, by lots of others. The important thing for me is to take the idea and make it mine somehow. Not that this necessarily makes it any more special to the world, but it makes it more useable for me once I have found the “Rickness” in the idea.
In this case, I am borrowing from one of the folks who was interviewed as part of the amazing movie, “What the Bleep Do We Know?” (an aside—if you have not seen this movie, seek it out!) The guy talked about waking up in the morning and visualizing his day: lining up the tasks he wanted to accomplish, seeing how things would go, acting in his mind to draw the energies he needed to him as the day would progress.
For me, it made sense to use a variation of this technique, and I named it Prime Thought. It is nothing more complicated than spending a quiet moment early in the day to choose (or, as Julia said, be chosen by) a single, easy-to-remember quality by which this day could be categorized…*before* it takes place. Sometimes, the Prime Thought comes to me before I get out of bed in the morning, and sometimes it arrives while I am sipping a cup of coffee in the early morning at work. I get to work early enough that I usually have an hour or so of peace before the rest of the employee population arrives.
My thought Thursday, “accommodation,” came in just as Julia was describing her dissatisfaction with the aging process as we headed out on our adventure. She decided she was going to try a new skin cream to ease her lack of harmony with this part of life, and I was struck that accommodation with the process could also be a factor in making the process less a frustration. I love the analogy of a rope pull or tug-o’-war. If two people are struggling at opposite ends of a rope to pull the other across to their side, it is only a contest (or, in this case, a frustration) as long as both keep pulling. If one lets go of the rope, the tension is over!
My feeling is that we tend to spend too much energy trying to force things. It is a particularly American trait: get your way through an expression of power, often in an “I win/you lose” scenario. What if, though, you could get your way by allowing things to flow as they are created to flow, with your own influence provided by love and surrender? “Surrender” not as admitting defeat, but in the sense of getting out of the way and allowing the universe to show *you* your power. It is the path to win/win.
So, before I wander completely away from the topic I set out this morning to contribute within, my Prime Thought is my way of acting as the creator of my day. Often times, I will discover a Prime Thought and not think about it again, at least consciously, for the remainder of the day. If it comes back to me in the evening, though, I can easily think back over the day and see the effect my early direction had. If this seems like something that would be fun to try, please try it!
Today’s Prime Thought for me is “clarity.”